I could not agree with your more Fairwind...what a GREAT site. It seemed to take them a long time to post, but now that it is up, I have to say it was worth the wait. I love the pictures, too. What a nice touch.....Can't wait for the season to get started.

Now that PAB has a new updated site....do you think they will post casting for the upcoming Balanchine program? Would love to have a heads up on who is dancing which roles, especially with the new dancers Julie Diana and Zachery Hench!

And here are a couple of features in the Post-Gazette about the Pittsburgh performances:

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Dance Preview: A new feather in Pennsylvania Ballet's cap

Jane Vranish Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Of all classical ballets, "Swan Lake" is the one, because of the nature of the bird, that must take wing above all others. <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04270/384275.stm target=_blank>more</a>

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Quote:

Pennsylvania Ballet excels in new 'Swan Lake'

Jane Vranish Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The Pennsylvania Ballet appeared yearly for the first six seasons of the Pittsburgh Dance Council (1969-1975), bringing with it performances based on a sparkling Balanchine style and a contemporary choreographic list that included then luminaries Benjamin Harkarvy and Hans van Manen. <a href=http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04278/389971.stm target=_blank>more</a>

&nbsp And from the company:

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By MICHAEL CARUSO The Pennsylvania Ballet will open its 2004-05 season with a spectacular program featuring performances of three of George Balanchine's most captivating works. Highlighting this celebration of the centennial anniversary of the great choreographer's birth will be "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," his collaboration with the great Broadway composer Richard Rodgers from "On Your Toes." Complimenting this jazzy masterpiece will be "Ballo della Regina," set to music taken from Giuseppe Verdi's opera, "Don Carlo," and "Agon," one of Balanchine's most acclaimed collaborations with the modern titan, Igor Stravinsky. Local balletomanes will have the chance to encounter the artistry of one of Pennsylvania Ballet's newest members in "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue." Julie Diana, formerly a member of the San Francisco Ballet for 11 years, will dance the ballet's principal female role. Originally from Summit, New Jersey, Diana began studying ballet when she was seven years old with the New Jersey Ballet in West Orange. After working there for five years, she moved onward and upward to Balanchine's School of American Ballet in New York City for four more years of instruction. Her training was supplemented by summer workshops with the Joffrey Ballet School. During her career to date, she has been honored with the Isadora Duncan Award for her performances in Jerome Robbins' "Dancers at a Gathering" and Kenneth MacMillan's "The Invitation." When asked what inspired her move from San Francisco to Philadelphia, she said that she had grown to miss the East Coast, where she grew up, even though she loved living in the fabled City by the Bay. "I missed the distinct change of seasons," she added. Speaking of her part in "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," Diana said, "It's different from most Balanchine choreography because it has a plot. She's sassy and seductive -- there's a lot of comedy in it -- and I get to wear heels and fishnet stockings. Plus, there's a little flashback in it for me because I first saw it danced when I was twelve and studying at the School of American Ballet. The technical demands are not that great, but what is appealing is that there's more room for interpretation of character development than in many Balanchine ballets. She's initially just playful and cute. Then she gets down and dirty." "Agon" is a different story altogether. Premiered in 1957 by the New York City Ballet, it is the third of three scores composed by Stravinsky for Balanchine, the others being "Appollon Musagete" in 1928 and "Orpheus" in 1948. The composer's inspiration was his coming upon a 17th century manual of French court dances and his determination to assemble a suite of dances. He used the name "Agon," which is Greek for "contest," "protagonist" or "agony." Balanchine added the traditional ballet centerpiece -- the pas de deux -- to the recreated court dances. Teaching the choreography to the dancers is balletmaster Jeffrey Gribler. "I think I danced it a million times," the company's former principal dancer joked. "Seriously, though, the last time we did it was in 2001 and I didn't dance it that time. My last time dancing it was in 1999. "Why do I love it?" he posed. "Well, like 'Four Temperaments' before it, it was very experimental in its day in 1957 -- asking dancers to do things they hadn't been asked to do before. Nowadays, of course, it's more a part of the language of ballet, but even so it still makes phenomenal demands on what your body can do. It's so athletic and its speed is still very challenging. Plus the score is so complex, especially the rhythms, that it can almost drive you crazy. You have to learn how to hear the music and count meticulously from start to finish. "I love teaching it," Gribler concluded, "because I've got to learn to dance it all over again." "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue," "Agon" and "Ballo della Regina" will play the Academy of Music November 3 and 4 at 8 p.m., November 6 at 2 and 8 p.m., and November 7 at 2 p.m. Call 215-893-1999 or visit www.paballet.org.

Quote:

The coming days offer local lovers of ballet and singing several opportunities to indulge their passion for exhilarating performances. The Pennsylvania Ballet opens its 2004-05 season with a presentation of Slaughter on Tenth Avenue , Ballo della Regina and Agon playing the Academy of Music November 3-7. The Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia opens its new season on Friday, October 29, at 8 & 10 p.m. with a program entitled "Hallowired" to be sung in the Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Saviour at 38th & Chestnut Streets in West Philadelphia. And the Academy of Vocal Arts Opera Theater presents Mozart's Cosi fan tutte in its own Warden Theater at 1920 Spruce Streets in Philadelphia and the Haverford School's Centennial Hall November 5-20. Agon is the third collaboration between composer Igor Stravinsky and choreographer George Balanchine. Premiered on November 27, 1957, by the New York City Ballet, it was last performed by the Pennsylvania Ballet in February, 2001. The other Stravinsky/Balanchine collaborations are Appollon Musagete in 1928 and Orpheus in 1948. "I think I may have danced Agon at least a million times," joked West Mt. Airy's Jeffrey Gribler, the Pennsylvania Ballet former principal dancer and now its balletmaster. "It probably wasn't quite that many times, but I danced it a lot, for the first time in the early 1990s and for the last time in 1999." Gribler continued by describing Agon as having been experimental in its time because it pushed further the boundaries of what a dancer's body could do than what had previously been demanded. "Even today," he said, "it's still phenomenal because of the speed and the complexity of the rhythms. You have to learn a new way of hearing the music because you can't just rely on 'dancers counting' but you've got to learn the music, itself, so that you can count the music's rhythms meticulously from start to finish. You've even got to learn the orchestral colors of the score. "But I'm loving teaching it as much as I loved dancing it -- perhaps because I've got to learn to dance it all over again so that I can teach it!" For ticket information call 215-893-1999 or visit www.paballet.org. CHORAL ARTS When the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia takes the stage Friday night at the Episcopal Cathedral, it will do so under the baton of its acting artistic director Matthew Glandorf. If the name already seems familiar, it may be the result of Glandorf, as the choir's assistant music director, having taken the podium to conduct the choir's final concert of last season upon the abrupt departure of then-artistic director David Tang. Glandorf is also well known as a concert organist, a teacher at his alma mater, the Curtis Institute of Music, and the director of the chamber choir In Clara Voce, which is in residence at Old Christ Episcopal Church in Society Hill. When I asked Glandorf to detail some of his goals for Choral Arts, he said that he wanted to establish a special "sound" for the ensemble. When I asked him to describe that "sound," he replied both humorously and seriously, "That's hard to answer." "I don't want to impose my own notion of a 'choral sound' on the choir," he continued. "I want the singers to develop the sound that best suits them, and then help them to learn how to hear and recognize that sound when they get it so that it becomes something unique and distinctive." Glandorf pointed out that there has been a tremendous amount of personnel turnover at Choral Arts since the departure of Donald Nally several years ago. Nally had made of himself a powerful and influential figure in the local music scene through his work at Choral Arts, the chorus of the Opera Company of Philadelphia and as choirmaster at St. Mark's Episcopal Church in the Rittenhouse Square section of Philadelphia. He has proven to be a hard act to follow wherever he worked. "First and foremost," Glandorf said, "I want Choral Arts to be known for the good music of its programs. I realize that there are societal and community aspects of any mostly volunteer chorus' life, but the primary goal is making good music and I think you need to program good music to accomplish that goal. Of course we'll do the standards, but I don't want us to be limited to the 'top ten' of the choral repertoire. For instance, I want us to be known as a choir that programs a less well known score such as Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610 ." Glandorf's inclusion of commissioned works will take concrete form at "Hallowired" with the world premiere of The Haunted Palace by local composer Anthony Mosakowski. It's based on Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher . The program also includes the "Dies Irae" movement from Verdi's "Manzoni" Requiem Mass, Lux Aeterna by Ligeti, and Moro Lass by Gesualdo. "I want everything we do to be performed at the highest level," Glandorf insisted. "But I also want our audiences to be surprised by what they experience at our concerts -- both enlightened and provoked." For ticket information call 215-545-8634 or visit www.choralarts.com MOZART'S 'COSI' Chuck Hudson will direct the AVA Opera Theater's production of Cosi fan tutte by Mozart. It will be his third encounter with the opera this calendar year. "Fortunately," he assured, "it's one of my favorites, I think because it leaves several important plot questions unanswered and they must be answered by the director, and I believe that I can best do that in conversation and discussion with the members of my cast." The story of Cosi revolves around the trickery of Don Alfonso and Despina perpetrated upon the young engaged lovers Ferrando, Guglielmo, Dorabella and Fiordiligi. The two young men are best friends and soldiers on maneuvers while the two young women are sisters engaged to the pair of fellows. Through the device of a bet and disguise, the pairs switch, much to the consternation of all four. For his first encounter of the year with Cosi, Hudson allowed the couples to return to their original pairings, but for his second interpretation, he permitted the switch to stand as a revelation of the true loves of all concerned. For AVA, the verdict is not yet in. "Since all the singers here at AVA are all young," Hudson explained, "I've decided that neither Don Alfonso nor the maid Despina are older than the four lovers, so that means that there is no 'parental' figure in the plot to impose a solution. Neither is there an aristocratic character to do the same thing. Cosi was written after the French Revolution, so it represents some new concepts for society." In order to make the story more accessible to as much of the audience as possible, Hudson has moved the time of its setting from the 18th century to the late 19th century. "I've asked the cast to watch the film A Room with a View because I'm thinking of this Cosi as a story about young people away from home. The girls have come to Italy on vacation to see their boyfriends who are about to be sent to Albania. It's in Italy, away from home, where they're able to express their emotions more freely than they would be at home in England. We certainly see that with young people away from home even today." For ticket information call 215-735-1675 or visit info@avaopera.org or www.avaopera.org.

Wow, amazing work Azlan. Thanks for posting the full casting, corps dancers included. I am booking my tickets as soon as I finish this post. Your site is the best......I know I can rely on this for the most up to date information (even more so then the company site)Thanks again....

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